The Old Lie: Pro Patria Mori
by eleanoralovesananias
Summary: Almost six years ago, Gallifreyan Army General John Watson and his mouthy, rebel TARDIS stuck in a human body, Harry, crashed to Earth, and they're each finding it not as boring as they had dreaded. Harry is burning through lovers faster than power cells, while John is solving cases with the most extraordinary human he's ever met. But love and war are no clean business. Johnlock.
1. Chapter 1

John Watson filled his mouth with sultry, pungent tea, and did his best to ignore the wall. The yellow smiley had half its face missing, and the wall peeled open into a full view of Sherlock's bedroom, piled with indiscriminate mess set off by the man himself's snoring, pale, _butt naked_ body sprawled over the bed.

Captain John Watson was more than used to a lack of privacy. He knew how to keep his eyes to himself. He'd fought for many governments, but in the legions of the first one, even unintentional nosiness could get you knocked into your next regeneration, if you had one. It was one place in which not being a Time Lord came in handy and even spared him a few painful deaths. That was what he had liked about the army - even on Earth. It was a place where the ordinary were valued. Rules were followed, too. One of which was to keep your eyes down while in the barracks.

Which is why he was letting the rich depths of his tea absorb all his attention, not sparing a glance for the spectacle just _tantalizingly_ half out of view. Sherlock was someone he cared about, of course he knew that - in fact, he was proud of it. But he was human - an animal. There was no excuse for tempting a creature hardly more developed than the monkey it evolved from. No matter how gifted, how extraordinary, how very much like a Gallifreyan he thought and acted, he was still only human. So John kept his eyes front.

The deep, uninterrupted sleep starting at dusk, deepening, melding with dreams, richening with a dark bass of unconsciousness throughout the night, climaxing with a tremendous, clarion burst of REM and slowly, gently softening with the dawn into a light, comfy dozing that lasted hours on end and only sluggishly gave way to a swaddled wakening and a desire for tea with honey in it past ten in the morning - this was a rare and secretly welcome, if sometimes unwillingly accepted, treat for Sherlock. John usually tried to keep out of the human detective's bad habits beyond making sure he stayed relatively healthy, but after a case as exhausting as the one they had just tackled, the alien doctor had taken the liberty of surreptitiously using some less-than-legally acquired off-Earth medicine in Sherlock's evening tea. He had been sleeping for more than twelve hours now. John had begun taking constant notice of his breathing, just in case he somehow got the dosage wrong.

The idea that he still took precautions like that would have caused generations of young Gallifreyan cadets and more than a few human subordinates to burst into nervous giggles. Captain John Watson didn't make mistakes, not on the battlefield or in the baracks, the green of Afghanistan knew. Literal centuries of army recruits on his home planet, though they didn't use the term _green,_ knew the same thing about the esteemed _Army_ _General Watson._ He was good. He was Gallifrey's finest and England's best. He had risen through the ranks in every army he'd fought in, usually starting at grunt work and picking up an officer's title in a year or two on average. And he had fought for many armies. He could kill most species with anything he had on hand, even something ridiculously harmless, like a Post-It note. And he could heal most species back from what lesser doctors would call death using whatever was nearby, from mud to lasers. He was a leader and a fighter, quick and resourceful and loyal and brave. But most of all, he was patient.

Watson was his name; Army General his title on Gallifrey. His race had a thing for redundant titles. Watson remained a useful name throughout his travels, but he'd begun using it as a "sur name," an odd tradition to mark familial ties on many primitive planets. And so he'd also picked up the "first name" John. It would have horrified the sedate, prim, stolid society of his home to know that he'd borrowed it admiringly from none other than John Smith, the code name for a man whom Watson's parents and their friends had always referred to as "You-Know-Who."

John sipped absentmindedly at the dregs of his tea. He had blessedly forgotten the view through the wall, so wrapped up was he in his own reminiscing. He was staring off into the distance, tea mug drooping in his hand and dripping cold tea onto his khakis, one finger of the other hand drumming out a beat he remembered all too well, when Sherlock coughed behind him.

His reaction was the reaction of battle-hardened Watson, not jumper-wearing civilian John, and it was instant. It took him a second to realize that the man he was currently restraining by his neck and stomach was Sherlock.

He slowly released him, shaking with the knowledge of how close he'd been, how little motion it would have taken to snap the intelligent human's neck. He shoved his hands in his pocket to hide their trembling. One move, one second longer of being convinced he was back in the war, and his best friend would be dead.

His best friend. It was true. It didn't matter if he was an animal. John deeply cared for this special, fragile, ever so slightly unstable human genius balanced between blessed and cursed on a seesaw built out of depression, drugs, and long lines of solved cases, saved lives, and people in his debt.

He cast his eyes down and forced himself to smile. "Sorry about that. You, uh, scared me. Soldier's instinct, I guess. You never quite get rid of it." He turned away so Sherlock wouldn't see the redness in his eyes. "I'll make you a cuppa. How did you sleep?"

* * *

Sherlock stayed very, deliberately still as John recovered his senses, aware of the hard, corded arm around his throat. He could identify the exact angle his neck would need to be in for John to break it, and he was close enough to that angle now to make it unwise to struggle. Anything that would simulate battle, drive John further into the nightmare he was in, was a very, very bad idea.

When the doctor let him go, embarrassment and shame on his face, the detective analyzed him thoroughly. _Didn't sleep last night. Has already drunk 4 and a half cups of tea due to stress. Has talked to Mrs. Hudson already this morning, if his left wrist is anything to go by. Shaved hastily because he felt it necessary to guard me while I slept. There was a disturbance during the night involving a mugging outside, and he got the victim to the hospital. The girl - obviously a girl 14-17 years of age, look at the level of wear on the crooks of his jumper's elbows - was seriously injured. The whole incident reminded him of Afghanistan, and he is now suffering for it._

Sherlock always analyzed John every morning when they both woke up. It was his way of looking after him. John didn't mind. Not noticing was the same thing as not minding, right? And after the way he had been rudely accosted, John deserved it. He massaged his throat.

He felt almost immediately badly when John hid the fact that he was obviously attempting to hold back tears. Sherlock heard his last question and quickly made the connection that hearing about the taller, handsomer man's rest would make John happy and break the awkwardness of his stress, thus relieving Sherlock of the need to attempt comfort. "I slept extremely well. It's been a very long time since I've slept that long or that deeply. I feel quite refreshed."

John's anxiety melted into a marginally suppressed happy smile. Sherlock's heart warmed, until he saw how John had cut his fingernails in conjunction with how he was covering his mouth.

The great consulting detective's mouth dropped open, a rare sight. "You drugged me!"

John gaped at him - not an innocent gape, but a _how-could-you-possibly-know-that_ gape. He recovered himself and took a gulp of Sherlock's tea. "Of course not. I would never do such a thing. You're still half asleep." His face was controlled, but the corners of his mouth were twitching.

Sherlock pressed, knowing full well he was right. "What did you use? I slept over twelve hours _._ _Me._ You were in danger at least once last night, probably because of the two muggers whom you fought at about 11:00 last night. What if you had needed me?"

John's lips thinned. "I didn't need you."

"You always need me," he hissed, slumping.

John laughed a slight, bitter laugh. " _I_ need _you?_ Let me _remind_ you -"

"Oh, dear, are we having a little domestic?" a bleating voice plainted from the doorway.

Both men turned around, Sherlock pulling his robe tighter shut, to see Mrs. Hudson's goatish face peeping around the corner. "I know how it can be," she bleated. "Me and my husband were always like that. Every little thing turned into a tiff."

John cleared his throat. "Still not gay," he reminded everyone futilely. _Or attracted to humans,_ he added in his head.

Sherlock faked a smile. "Mrs. Hudson, isn't it time for your morning soother?" the detective said derisively. And he got up and closed the door on her, ignoring her stutters and squalls.

Sherlock and John looked at each other. John snorted first.

Sherlock barely held in a chuckle.

They both burst into laughter.

The rest of the morning passed as smoothly as a morning at 221B Baker Street could. Sherlock pressed for details about last night's mugging, John artfully dodged, and Sherlock switched tactics and complained loudly about sleeping pills. John shut him up with a well-made mug of tea, and they passed the time until Mycroft Holmes burst in, panting and leaning heavily on his umbrella. His normal disdainful calm was cracked with a look of... something, as he gestured wildly, gasping for air.

John rose to his feet. Sherlock's head snapped up and he stared at his brother in amazement. Mycroft looked helplessly at John, unable to speak, but waving around the thick case file he had in his hands. The doctor helped him to a chair and gestured for him to sit down. Mycroft shook his head.

"Sit down," John said soothingly, hiding his shock at this sudden change.

"I have to talk to Sherlock," the older man managed to gasp out.

" **Sit down,** " John repeated, using his most calming tone salted with a little bit of good old fashioned Gallifreyan hypnosis.

Mycroft blinked and sat down. The minute he did, he seemed to relax and took a few deep breaths.

"When you're ready," Dr. Watson warned.

The government official quickly recovered and looked up, directly at Sherlock. "You have to get out of here," he said sharply.

Sherlock, for once, was neither derisive nor dismissive. "Why?" he asked seriously. Seeing his brother like this had shaken him.

"I have intelligence that this flat will be targeted by a small terrorist cell operating in the heart of London. In any normal circumstances, I would simply thwart the plot. However, these people are a special case. They used to be under the thumb of Moriarty, like most of the criminal activity in England, but something happened. Sources have been unable to tell what. Every time I send in an agent, they disappear. There's no body, no threats, only silence. One thing, however, is very clear. Whatever separated this cell from the network, Moriarty has done nothing to recapture their loyalties. Intelligence from within Moriarty's network indicates he is _afraid_ to do so."

Sherlock and John gaped at Mycroft with identical looks of incredulity. Sherlock quickly steepled his fingers and began to think, while John burst out into a stream of questions.

Mycroft, now fully recovered, held up a hand to stop both of them. John closed his mouth. "My agents have set up a safe house and will be arriving to relocate you at any moment. Take this time to gather whatever you don't wish to be destroyed. The bombs may already be planted."

Sherlock's attention came back to reality. "What about Mrs. Hudson?"

"Who?"

"Mrs. Hudson." Irritation crept into his voice. "The landlady."

Mycroft blinked. "Oh." From the moment he had recieved the intelligence "bombs at Baker Street," he honestly hadn't thought beyond his brother's safety. "Well..."

The door burst open, and several plainclothes government agents walked in. "I'm sorry, Mr. Holmes, but we have to go _now,_ " the lead agent urged. "No one is safe here."

Mrs. Hudson appeared, bobbing behind the agents. "Oh, Sherlock, the mess all these people have made!" she bleated. "I couldn't stop them going in. They said something about -"

Sherlock made eye contact with John. The doctor nodded and, striding over, took Mrs. Hudson by the arm while Sherlock started shoving things into a randomly open suitcase. " _No_ experiments," he called over his shoulder. "Only essentials."

Sherlock made a noise of protest, somewhere along the lines of "You act as though the two categories are incapable of overlapping," but John was already out the door, shushing Mrs. Hudson and explaining briefly why they had to leave.

"But my flats!" Mrs. Hudson bleated. "How am I supposed to live?" John consoled her as he urged her towards the unmarked car.

Sherlock glanced up from stuffing his Union Jack pillow, a box of nicotine patches and one very low-key experiment into the suitcase and saw his brother's stressed and worried face. _H_ _asn't slept, ran up the stairs, hired agents he could trust but had to pay quite a bit extra._ He bit his lip. Every so often the consulting detective had to confront the fact that Mycroft actually did care for him. It was the curse of being so intelligent. Still, he felt duty-bound to say something. "Thank you," he muttered out.

Mycroft's eyebrows raised.

"You needn't act so surprised," the younger man growled, throwing John's extra jumpers in with the half-full tea kettle. "You did just save my life."

"That never seemed to merit a thanks before," Mycroft commented. "Could it be that a certain doctor is rubbing off on you?"

Sherlock glared, and zipped up the suitcase with an air of finality. "Could it be that you are _jealous_ of my friendship with John?"

Mycrfot reacted with a flinch, a movement that would have startled Sherlock had he not been already marching down the stairs to join his friend, off on yet another adventure.


	2. Chapter 2

The car was cruising into their new lodgings when a fireball rocketed into the sky far behind them. John glanced behind them and winced as a blast of hot air took shingles off nearby rooftops, denting the car with a series of alarming _thuds._ Mrs. Hudson cried out and wrung her bony hands. Sherlock stayed impassive.

John turned back and watched the city outside the window, marvelling at the humans walking one by one and two by two, carrying things, eating, chattering to one another and living their lives. There were shops, and houses, and people everywhere. It was so familiar, and yet so alien. He half expected to look up to the tops of the buildings and see the spires and domes of the Capitol, towered over by the welcoming shimmer of the dome, and above that, the endless red sky. But instead, the buildings were still the nests of humans, and the sky was a foreboding blue. He turned back with a shudder as the unmarked car pulled to a stop in front of a nondescript warehouse.

"A warehouse?" murmured Sherlock. "How very original." But then, Mycroft always did have a sense of the theatrical, and nothing has ever been more theatrical than cliches.

He climbed out of the car and stood quietly on the sidewalk, coat rustling in the sudden quiet like a reminder that even when he was still, the great detective's piercing mind ran a thousand miles ahead of his legs, circling the world in an instant and covering the greater distance into someone's soul in almost as much time. He was poised to understand things that other people sometimes tripped over, and every facet of him, from his coat of armor to his rebuttal of a personality, was carefully designed to protect him from the revelations he could never control.

John stood next to him, six inches shorter and over two thousand years older than the human he had grown to love. He stood with the muted grace of a survivor. His eyes didn't dart from place to place like Sherlock's, but watched everything at once, logging every movement and possible threat, and every story happening on the periphery of his. He saw it all, standing poised to attack or defend, to love or hate, to make whatever choice had to be made. He knew, acutely and painfully, just how easily the city would be torn like paper by inevitable tragedy and time, and his heart reached out to encompass all of it, to touch it before it was gone forever.

Mycroft's agents hurried them into the warehouse. They watched the spacious, bare open walls, stacked with enormous boxes labelled "BOOKS O-Z," and their shoes clopped like hooves on the stained concrete. Between two intimidating stacks of boxes, one of which was stamped with the number #2010, the other with #1895, was hidden a small, inconsipicious door labelled - with a sense of humor, John suspected - "221B".

Sherlock entered and half-heartedly scanned the room. It resembled a cheap motel room: bare, comfortless, with low ceilings, and a little bit dirty, as well as empty except for two beds, a small snack refrigerator (fully stocked, he suspected) and a TV with only one channel - the news, judging by the pattern of fingerprints on the buttons. A toilet was blocked off by curtains; there was no shower. He disliked it all immediately, but the detective adapted quickly and took the suitcase from John. He tossed it on one of the beds (making that one automatically his) and started furnishing the flat with dirty laundry, half-empty tea mugs and other comforts, to Mrs. Hudson's protests.

John looked around. A light dusting of depression settled across his shoulders. He drew almost imperceptibly into himself. The room reminded him too much of government-supplied housing - the basics, the essentials, and a suffocating air of "There, now get better." His left hand shook, ever so slightly.

The doctor squared his shoulders and helped Mrs. Hudson down onto the clean bed. "There, rest your hip," he said quietly, soothing himself as well as her. "You should have this bed. I'll sleep on the floor."

"Oh, John, thank you so much!" the landlady bleated. "I don't know what to think, with my flats all gone - but you're such a good man, John. I've always been able to rely on you." She patted his arm and smiled. The soldier couldn't help but warming with a smile of his own. From across the cramped room, Sherlock watched with something a little like jealousy.

John made up a pallet on the floor and organized his things. Sherlock organized his things, too, but his "organization" was generally inscrutable to anyone besides himself. After all, why bother putting things away when he could find things just by deduction?

John was more of an alphabetical-order kind of guy. He liked having things right where he could grab them at a moment's notice without even looking. He organized his clothes by type, weather and occasion, and his money he put somewhere as close to his gun as possible, which he liked safely close to him. Shampoo, soap, toothbrush and hair gel went in the bathroom (such as it was), and the tea kettle, skillet and set of silverware went in the kitchen (which in this case meant on top of the snack refrigerator).

He didn't really own anything else. He wasn't sentimental, and in all his travels he'd never picked up a keepsake. He would have liked to have something of his family, but his race wasn't big on photographs and anything bigger would have been confiscated during his... _unusual_ departure from Gallifrey.

He didn't have any books, either. He hadn't grown up with them. During the majority of his life, any information he needed was available through holovids, gaseous or subatomic transmissions and just talking to people. On Gallifrey the only people who read were Academy Time Lords, whom he'd always disdained as useless, dishonest snobs. It wasn't until he reached Earth and found, to his dismay, that everything was on paper, that he learned to read. He wasn't even sure he'd be able to recognize Gallifreyan writing if he saw it.

He only had one pair of shoes, one ancient laptop, and the beat-up phone he'd been regifted by Harry as a lasting reminder of how much she hated him. Some people might have said that John was a simple man. He wasn't. He was a no-nonsense, orderly, practical man, but he was not simple. He was complicated.

He was the uneducated tribal kid from wild lands of Gallifrey, outside of the protected cities and free of the Time Lord government, who'd been awed and mystified by the Capitol.

He was the fresh-faced new grunt soldier who'd been ready to protect and serve.

He was the traumatized young soldier who'd discovered the hard way that he wasn't fighting for the good guys.

He was the bitter and furious fighter who had responded to disillusionment by throwing himself into the work of war, and who had grown to enjoy it, to love blood and killing in a way that frightened even him.

He was the pessimistic officer who knew that rising through the ranks was not a badge of honor for the courageous, but a mark of Cain for the survivor at all costs.

He was the cynical but humorous, softened by time, middle-aged Army General who had learned that above all else, you had to keep caring.

He was the father of three healthy, brave, idealistic, beautiful young Gallifreyan children, well loomed and brought up, and the husband of an intelligent, courageous, compassionate wife who made him dizzy with undeserved joy.

He was the only sane leader who saw what was coming, and tried in vain to get people to prepare, when the Last Great Time War was declared.

He was the man screaming, beating against the walls of the cargo hold for someone to take him back, to let him die with everything he loved as his planet burned behind him.

He was the prisoner of war profiteering slavers, empty, hopeless, too far gone to care what happened to him.

He was the uncomplaining slave of kings and emperors who struck no fear into him, accepting his lot simply because he had no other purpose.

He was the devastated, ripped-apart patient of a galactic abolitionist and doctor, who put him back together and more, inspired him to learn to heal instead of kill.

He was the wandering doctor, roving aimlessly through the galaxy helping where he could help, healing where he could heal, learning from everyone he met, and piece by piece, over centuries, making himself whole again.

He was the changed man who'd crashed to Earth after the _business_ with Harry and slipped into the role of army medic like a glove the moment he saw wounded, eventually being accepted as an oddball but kind out-of-nowhere Good Samaritan/guardian angel who, according to him, "was just, uh, um, passing by?" while trying to hide the engine burns on his hands.

He was the complicated, dark and humorous, cynical and loving, broken and whole man who had met Sherlock Holmes, and maybe, just maybe, might have fallen in love.


	3. Chapter 3

The unfortunate thing about being kept safe was that no one, not even customers or Scotland Yard, could know where they were. As cases dropped out of their lives, it became more and more quiet and domestic. At first it was near-idyllic. Mrs. Hudson made them tea every morning and soon began to bake in the absence of anything else to do. Her pastries were delicious. John, while he missed the action and sometimes found his left hand trembling, rather enjoyed getting to wake up, eat breakfast, and read the newspaper all the way through without being yanked off on another case. Even Sherlock seemed calmer, more peaceful, and ate dinner with them almost every night before spending hours propped against the wall, playing haunting melodies on his violin and staring into nothingness.

Yet the abrupt departure from their normal lives took its toll. Over time, John's hand began to shake more and more badly, eventually impairing his function and forcing him to do everything with his right hand. He became shorter-tempered, more irritable, and began to have nightmares again. Before long he was afraid to sleep, knowing it would bring vivid memories of war and battle, the explosions of regeneration energy, the robotic screams from the enemy, and if he were unlucky, a drowning feeling that came with being kidnapped, chained and beaten, and dragged away from his burning planet in front of his screaming children, who clung to one another and sobbed over their mother's unconscious (he chose to believe she had been unconscious) body.

Sherlock, too, became more and more restless as the weeks wore on. He settled into texting Mycroft three or four times a day, asking if it was safe to leave yet. Mycroft stopped answering him after three days of clipped responses. He had forgotten his gun, thank goodness, but his violin melodies became more and more harsh and restive. And John saw the way he itched at the veins of his arms as though anticipating needles there. He took to pacing, back and forth throughout the night, and when John threatened to drug him again, he was met with only a glare. Even Mrs. Hudson picked up on the cooped-up atmostphere and began slamming things and whining about wanting "a bit of fresh air."

Finally John took matters out of Mycroft's smothering hands. He set up a small feature on his blog where potential customers (Scotland Yard included) could ask for help with cases; they would explain the case, give a meeting place and time, and Sherlock and John would show up if they thought it was interesting.

It wasn't long before they had enough cases to choose from for every day of week. John almost regretted breaking the peace.

"Does this sound good?" John asked, handing his laptop over to Sherlock. It was the first case he'd seen that Sherlock might rate above a three. "The entire population of a girls' children's home has gone missing, except for a few nurses who were out on a lunch break. The meeting place and time's a bit odd, too. It's in the middle of nowhere."

Sherlock looked up from his violin. That was a good sign - or a bad sign, depending on how you looked at it. "Who's hushing it up?"

"Explain?" John didn't even set down his coffee, being more than used to Sherlock's comments.

Sherlock rubbed his forehead, refraining from making a rude comment. It was John, after all. "An entire children's home, three floors, 90 bedrooms, plus the staff, disappears without a trace in the time it takes to get coffee. It's a great headline. Plus, the media loves to pulls heartstrings. So why hasn't it been in the news, hmm? Answer: someone hushed it up."

"I won't even ask how you know how many bedrooms there are." John sighed, then refocused his attention. "So, we're dealing with a case that's been hushed up. Step one: make sure Mycroft isn't involved."

Sherlock rolled his eyes. "If it was Mycroft, do you really think anyone would be left to ask about it?"

John gritted his teeth as he agreed. He deeply disliked the human official. He reminded him far too strongly of a Time Lord: brilliant, disdainful and thoroughly reptilian. Yet he was always polite, for Sherlock's sake, and his people were _very_ good at hiding their emotions when they chose. Neither of the brothers had any idea how happy he'd be to shove a good quality Gallifreyan army knife right up Mycroft's - well, no use in fuming. The Time Lords were gone, but pompous pricks were still around. They hadn't all burned with the worst of them. Sometimes it was difficult to remember that he was never going to see any of them again. The loss was too huge; it became unreal. He still half-expected every morning to find himself at home. So many centuries of wandering, of healing until the memory of his children didn't kill him inside anymore, and still...

"I said, I'll take the case," Sherlock repeated himself, annoyed that his doctor wasn't listening.

"What?" John started. He looked around for the source of the words, confused. His eyes lit on Sherlock, and he suddenly remembered where he was. "Oh. Right. Yes." He shook his head hard and managed a tight smile. "Lost in thought, I guess."

The human detective watched his friend as he got ready to go, making no move to get off the bed. John often had short spaces of time where he was dead to the world, staring off into space with an expression that could only be described as brooding.

But it was more than that. That look, that dark, cold look of something he didn't know a word for... it frightened him, sometimes. And he was not easily frightened.

He knew there was something more to John, of course. He'd noticed it the moment he met him. He couldn't not. Behind the simple deductions - meaningless tricks that anyone of reasonable intelligence should be able to do; it wasn't his fault no one had reasonable intelligence - there was something else. That mystery was the reason he'd accepted John in the first place. Their friendship was a pleasant side effect.

John looked pointedly at him, still sprawled under the blanket, "Teleporting to the crime scene, are we?" He pulled himself off the bed, slipped his phone in his pocket, and pulled his scarf around his neck.

They were heading out when Mrs. Hudson hurried to stand next to them. She was dressed to go out, in a warm jacket and shoes that Sherlock noticed she didn't wear often and were made for running. She was carrying a purse which bulged oddly in a few different places. The two men stared at her.

"Well, I'm coming too," the former landlady said impatiently.

Sherlock gaped, a rare thing. John tried to think of a polite way to refuse her. "I appreciate your wanting to help," he began awkwardly, "but what we do... well, it's dangerous. We'll all be really, well, better off if we, um, go alone."

The lady gave him a cold glare. The alien solider actually took a few steps backward. An angry Mrs. Hudson was not something he wanted to deal with.

"I don't know what you think I've been doing, but I have been locked up in this place just as long as you have, and I am absolutely stifled. I am _not_ going to stay in the kitchen and bake cookies and make your beds and wait for you to get home, whenever you get home, _if_ you get home, because I am not your housekeeper, and I am _not_ your _goddamn mother, pardon my language_."

Sherlock, John, and Mrs. Hudson headed out together.

They walked about a mile from their safe house before hailing a cab, just in case. None of them really trusted cabbies anymore. On the ride, the two men filled Mrs. Hudson in on the case.

"Well, I'm sure this has you two very excited," she smiled fondly. "It's a terrible business, and all that."

She seemed calm now, but John had no idea how Mrs. Hudson would react to a crime scene. He didn't even know what he would find there. It could be messy. So, with a glance at Sherlock, he began rattling off their basic rules around a case in a tone of briefing a soldier on an active combat mission.

"If you're going to be on a case, you should know a few things. First, unless he's putting people in direct danger, what Sherlock says goes. B - no, second, if he is putting people in direct danger, smack him upside the head. Third, if you get a chance to eat or sleep, take it. That can be rare during a case. Fourth, be ready to run at any moment. Fifth, if we do have to run, keep up. If you can't keep up or you get left behind, circle back to Baker Str- I mean, circle back to the safe house. No one is _supposed"_ he threw a look at Sherlock - "to be investigating on their own."

"Sixth, if Mycroft gets involved, we pull out of the case. No questions. And finally, if at _any_ point there is even the _slightest_ hint that Moriarty so much as happened to eat at the same _cafe_ as the client, you will go back to the safe house without question and you will call both Mycroft and the police unless one of us contacts you and tells you not to. Got it?"

Mrs. Hudson nodded, her eyes wide.

"For goodness' sake, John, this isn't Afghanistan," Sherlock countered protectively. "There's no need to frighten Mrs. Hudson. I rate it at a 0.1% chance that Mycroft is involved, and a 3% chance that Moriarty is. And I rate the case at a five, possibly a six if my suspicions are correct."

"Suspicions?"

"I'll explain later."

John sighed and turned to the window. The rest of the drive passed quietly. Sherlock was deep in thought, John was watching London fly by, and Mrs. Hudson was both nervous and excited and trying not to show it.

The cab pulled up in a small, quiet lane with a quaint neighborhood on one side of the road and impenetrable-looking forest on the other.* A narrow, winding dirt trail curved away into the woods. A mailbox by its entrance held the address, and on the other side an old painted sign read dimly, "Hope & Grace Nature Therapy And Children's Home For Girls".

Mrs. Hudson shivered. John looked impassively off into the woods, and Sherlock began examining the mailbox, running his fingers along it and narrowing his eyes. He kept his deductions to himself, which set off a warning bell in John's mind.

Yet the detective strode confidently onto the trail and into the forest, barely blinking. John hurried to keep up with his shorter legs, and Mrs. Hudson hesitated and looked around, wondering what she'd got herself into. She quickly followed, clutching her purse, before her tenants got out of sight.

They walked through thick forest along a narrow but well-kept dirt road. Sherlock stopped every now and then to examine the ground, murmuring things like "So it did exist at some point" and "What could that letter have been about?" The other two folowed along behind him, John looking very patient and Mrs. Hudson confused.

Finally the dese closeness of the forest opened up into a well-tended clearing. A huge, three-storied grey house stood on the other side of it. The path led right up to its door, through gardens that looked like they'd just been weeded - indeed, a trowel lay in one of the beds, its point stuck into the earth as though just set aside.

Just across the clearing, one leaning against the house, were three women. From here, they could only see that one was fat and in scrubs, one was skinny and in jeans, and one, the one nonchalantly leaning against the house while the other two stood nervously straight, was curvy, with a very distinct mane of curly brown hair, wearing a tight dress - and giving off an unmistakable aura of rippling time.

John's heart sank.

The three of them approached them across the clearing, and John was biting down fury.

Two of the women spotted them and moved forward excitedly. The third continued leaning against the house, aware of them without lifting her eyes, and despite the fact that she was still too far to have a visible face, John could just _feel_ her arrogant, self-satisfied smirk.

Sherlock shook hands with the fat woman and instantly began interviewing her, but he was very aware of and intrigued by the woman standing behind. His eyebrow rose in surprise and interest as John, instead of sticking close as he usually did, approached her directly.

John's forced smile was angry and bitter as she lifted her head to meet him with a sneer.

"Harry."

* * *

 ***Small footnote: I have been reliably informed that England does not have vast stretches of nothing populated only by forest/plains/desert/water/mountains (depending on where you are) like America does. It's pretty much impossible for me to imagine this. I've never been more than ten miles away from a completely unpoulated area. So I'm just going to treat the geography here like it's taking place in New England. Sorry to the confused British people this will spawn.**


	4. Chapter 4

Sherlock's jaw hung open.

The fat nurse he had been in the middle of interrogating waved a hand in front of his face. "Mr. Holmes? What are you looking at?"

He barely glanced at her; he had everything he needed from her without speaking a word, anyway. And this was _much_ more interesting. "Excuse me, Mrs. Harold," he threw out vaguely, pushing past her.

"It's Farrand! Where are you going? Aren't you supposed to be this great detective?!" the fat woman shrilled after him.

Sherlock stopped when he saw the expressions on the two faces, and from a safe distance, he watched John and the infamous Harry meet.

Their stances, directly across from each other, eye contact held confrontationally, feet planted as if each one was waiting for the other to attack, left little to the imagination. Combined with the look of pure hatred John was directing towards his 'sister,' and the look of arrogant disdain she was tossing his way, it was clear that "estranged" was not quite a strong enough word for whatever happened between these two.

Fascination entered the great detective's eyes as his flatmate said quietly, "So."

Harry lifted her head, pale face and round cheeks glowing with smug satisfaction, curly brown hair bouncing around her ears and falling into her eyes with little regard for dignity, and responded, "So!" She was almost cheerful.

John glared at her. "What the hell do you want?"

She failed to act surprised at his rudeness. "I want my kids back," she responded simply, as if John were the stupidest person on the planet - which would be saying something, considering its _population._

"And you called _me?"_ His words were short, but his tone spoke volumes.

Harry snorted, as if to dismiss his anger as immaturity. That incensed him. The doctor's lips whitened with barely held self-discipline. Harry rolled her bright eyes. "You're so difficult," she mellowed. "I called Sherlock Holmes. You do remember it, don't you?"

John relented and resentfully unclenched his fists, although he stayed on his guard. He took his attention momentarily off Harry - and suddenly caught sight of his human friend, watching fascinatedly.

John turned red as a beet. He turned to yell at Harry, gave up, threw up his hands, and walked away.

Sherlock gave Harry an extra thorough examination.

 _Travelled extensively over most of her life, but settled down recently after a catacylsmic life event involving John._ His chest fluttered, just a little, at the thought.

 _Has become something of a serial lover, with multiple partners sometimes within a week._

 _Rebellious and with a hatred for authority; has had several brief stays in prison over the past three years._

 _Worked a series of odd jobs, none of which lasted very long, until acquiting a job here, which absorbed enough of her distractable attention to keep her in a job for five months._

 _Has some sort of consistent and lucrative source of income, probably less than legal, possibly actually criminal._

 _Was not involved in the disappearance of the children... except perhaps indirectly. In fact, she knows more than she's letting on. However, she was not responsible. She cares a great deal about the welfare of the girls._

The detective furrowed his brow, trying to wring more secrets from her smooth facade, and didn't notice that she was approaching him, head tilted, bright eyes examining him in his turn, and looking both intrigued and satisfied.

Until she kissed him.

Sherlock froze when the young woman - _John's sister -_ was right up against him, very much too close, with her mint-scented breath in his face and her body pressed against his, and then her plump lips were on his mouth and he could smell her overpowering cherry lip gloss, and she didn't let go - it must have been nearly a minute - he couldn't breathe - wait, was that her - _eww!_

He managed to pull himself away from her iron grip and stumbled backwards, gagging.

She tried to grab him again, but John was running up and pulled her away, his face furiously red.

" _Consent_ , Harry!" he cried, mortified.

"Why?" Harry asked indifferently, wiping her mouth. "It's not like it could say yes."

John's ears were tipped bright red, but he turned to Sherlock to make sure he was all right. The human was coughing and wiping his sleeve at his mouth. As John watched, he turned and spat, trying to get the abhorrent taste of cherry lip gloss out of his mouth.

"Nice cheekbones," Harry complimented brightly.

Sherlock looked pale.

John placed himself protectively between Harry and Sherlock, for which Sherlock looked grateful, and then turned to the detective. "So, any conclusions?"

"What?"

"The children, Sherlock. Do you know what happened to them?"

Sherlock forced himself to stop looking warily at Harry and look at John. "Right. Um. The girls were definitely taken against their will. Maybe kidnapped, maybe killed. I'll have to look inside."

He paused. Should he mention to John that his sister might be involved? His eyes slid to the woman's gleaming amber ones and decided against it. Not in front of _her,_ anyway. Later. In private.

Mrs. Hudson chatted easily to the two other nurses. She was choosing to ignore the scene that was unfolding with her boys. Besides, the two young ladies were very sweet girls. She'd already learned so much. Their names, for example, and some of the backgrounds of the girls who had gone missing, and that there was a leak in the ceiling in the third floor bathroom. She was a regular Sherlock. How had they ever managed without her?

She wondered what Sherlock learned when he had a conversation. Did he know everything about a person, just from talking to them? Or did he have limits? She certainly hoped so. If he knew everything about everyone, then it was no wonder he couldn't stand anyone.

John's sister seized Sherlock by the lapels and did something extremely inappropriate.

Mrs. Hudson quickly employed her powers of charm and distracted the two young women from looking back at Sherlock. She mentally made another mark in her internal tally of how much he owed her.

John, taking the reins of his disorganized crew in true military fashion, corralled the five of them (Sherlock, Harry, Mrs. Hudson, and the two nurses) towards the front door. Mrs. Hudson protested, but Sherlock, for once, meekly followed, and Harry merely looked amused.

Sherlock was actually grateful for John's firm guidance. Harry's assault had thrown him badly off kilter. He still couldn't focus on anything other than how much he wanted to throw up. He wasn't entirely sure why being kissed by John's sister felt so incredibly _wrong,_ but he wanted to wash out his mouth with soap.

He did what he always did, and focused on the work. He stopped at the grey-painted door and examined it closely. _No scratching or tearing around the edges of the door, so it wasn't forced._ He checked the locks and latches. _Clearly kept locked - look at the shine of that bolt. The dirt on the inside on this lock can't be more than four hours old. They didn't leave the door unlocked, and it wasn't forced, so this must have been someone the knew._ He reconsidered, remembering his first case with John. _Or someone they trusted, for whatever reason._

He entered the building, pushing open the door with force and noting its smooth swing. No one had touched the crime scene since the crime, a rare treat.

Inside, a huge, open, airy room spread out. The room was built like a church: not wide, but long and tall. The ceilings were cold grey stone that arched under the duress of curved ribs which met, out of view, in the spine of the roof. The walls were the same - huge blocks of grey stone. The opposite side of the room curved into a point, rather like the prow of a ship. Altogether, the entire room was shaped like a boat - or a church, which is what it had been built as.

However, the full length of the former sanctuary had been transformed into a huge, open common room. The pews had been removed to make way for a smattering of round tables, covered with bright, sunny floral tablecloths. There were still, Sherlock noted, books, plates of food, board games, maths worksheets, watercolor sets, tablets, phones, and other trappings of life scattered over the tables. Chairs remained pulled out, but none were knocked over as if in a struggle. It seemed that not a single person had resisted being taken away.

Around the room, pushed up against the walls, were plushy sofas, interspersed with bookshelves containing boxes of games, CDs, video games, movies, dolls, toy trucks, action figures, art sets, clay and glass figurines, and of course, tons of books. The sofas still had impressions of people pressed into them where the girls had been sitting. Where the altar would have been, the wall had been changed into a huge floor-to-ceiling window, fitted with a small, cozy alcove window seat. On one side of the room, a staircase led up to the other two floors, which had been built into the top half up the church.

Sherlock went from table to table, sofa to sofa, examining what had been left behind. There were so many fingerprints, he hardly knew what to pay attention to. He resolved to do a more thorough examination of them once he'd gleaned as much as he could from everything else.

Nothing was thrown about, nothing was knocked over, nothing was broken. He still couldn't quite believe it, but there was more evidence wherever he looked. Almost a hundred people, out of which at least 20 were mature adults, had been shepherded out of their home and taken - taken _somewhere -_ without a single motion or noise of protest. They had simply walked out, with their kidnapper at their head, in single file, like well-coordinated sheep.

The thought was so alien that he, Sherlock Holmes, briefly considered a supernatural explanation.

He dismissed it just as quickly, of course, but wild theories continued to buzz annoyingly around his mind palace. Dream states. Government experiments. Even the idea of extraterrestrial intervention, the most outlandish of ideas, tickled at the edge of his consciousness. Bioterrorism. Z.F.T. Hypnosis.

 _Hypnosis?_ He considered it. It wasn't as far-fetched as some of the others. But he dismissed it. No one could hypnotize a hundred people at once.

 _Except maybe aliens,_ he thought sarcastically, making fun of himself.

He turned to the stairs.


	5. Chapter 5

John, Mrs. Hudson, Harry, and the two nurses followed Sherlock nervously inside. Mrs. Hudson gasped silently and grasped onto John's arm as she got her first look at the awe-inspiring interior.

"It looks like a tomb," the landlady whispered, as if someone could hear them besides their own shadows.

John let his eyes move from one place to another, even as Harry glided comfortably through the common room, and became increasingly more disturbed with every table and couch he passed by. Chairs were still pulled out. Board games were set up as if in the middle of a game. Plates with half-finished food on them lay out on the tables next to open books, their pages waving lazily in the air in the sudden breeze. Some of the overstuffed sofas were still sagging with the imprints of human bodies. John shuddered as he saw these, trying desperately not to be reminded of shadows burned into sidewalk.

It was eerie. The whole room gave the impression of vibrant life, just put on pause, abandoned for a moment to attend to something else. Yet except for their own echoing footsteps, which sounded cacophonous and almost disrespectful - like shouting in a tomb - the silence was absolute.

As Sherlock headed towards the stairs - apparently finished with his examination - John approached a table and stared down at its contents. Harry stuck unusually close behind him, as she had been doing since they entered the building. The doctor looked through several Harry Potter books, a copy of _Dracula,_ and a plate of powdered jelly doughnuts plump with strawberry jelly, and found a half-finished watercolor, one of the brushes still touching the paper, as if it had just been dropped where it was.

He picked it up - and experienced a panicky, choking feeling. Staring out from the paper with soulless eyes was a rough depiction of a monster. Its skin was bone white, and its head huge, bulbous and bald. Its eyes were marked only by shadowed ridges that curled around the skin where its eyes should have been. Its mouth was an empty, circular sucker. It was tall, much taller than a human, and thin, with huge, fingerless hands. Strangest of all, it was wearing an Earth-style suit.

It couldn't possibly have been more clearly an alien.

John stared in horror. He whirled around to face Harry, who was right behind him, watching. "Who-"

He stopped, confused. The paper fluttered to the floor as his hand forgot it had been holding something. His brow crinkled. Why was he facing Harry? What had he been looking at? He felt a little lightheaded.

Harry was watching him intensely, her eyes pleading and glued to his face, as if hanging onto his every word. Her eyes were begging him to... do something. He had no idea what. The vague sense of dejá vu that had wavered at the edge of his consciousness had dissipated. He looked at his sister oddly and walked on.

Harry's shoulders slumped as she watched him walk away. She had hoped that he at least, being a Time Lord, might be able to overcome whatever it was that was affecting all the animals. But clearly not.

 _I'm on my own, then,_ she thought. _Let's see what I can do._

She picked up the watercolor from the floor, and followed her Time Lord.

Harry swayed along, trailing her fingers along the shiny, dustless tables. She could name the girl every book belonged to. She could recognize them by their styles of strategy in chess, and whether they played chess, and what they liked to play instead.

Even in a human body, her archives were untouched. She could recall things that happened before the Time Lords learned to stand. She never forgot, and her memory was not restricted to the past. In fact, words like "past" and "future" meant nothing to her. Time was ever so much more complicated than that. The whole universe pulsated within the fragile dome of bone she was confined to. Yet right now, all she could focus on was one tiny moment in history, the moment made up of 86 young human females, clinging like monkeys to the a forsaken rock on the edge of the universe, spinning through space, and then - gone.

She watched the human child, the one with the piercing eyes and innocent heart, dart from place to place, seeing everything, understanding nothing. He was already on the third floor, and her human eyes could no longer see him, but she could feel the agitated, quivering strand of his timeline, stretching tautly back to a traumatic childhood and a still-there idealism that was now hidden under a cynical armor.

She could feel her Time Lord's longer - much longer - a thousand times longer - timeline moving steadily through space and time. His timeline tasted like blankets and comfort, and strength and cut grass and red. He moved along with the child, caring for him with the patience and instinct of a healer.

Their timelines wove around each other, as she had expected, but not in the loose, casual curve of friends or coworkers. Harry stopped - both in the Vortex and in the human, physical world.

 _What the hell is this?_

She witnessed the two threads knotting and wrapping together, spiraling like two strands of a double helix. Sherlock took a step, John took a step, and they were pulled closer. John breathed, Sherlock breathed, and they were pulled closer. Their lives clung to each other in the way that their physical bodies never did - and in almost all possible timelines, never would.

 _Not on my watch._

Harry closed her eyes, not moving, hardly even aware of the human world in which her body remained. Mrs. Hudson looked at her strangely as she passed by, but Harry's coworkers clucked their tongues and reassured her that she was "just like that." The TARDIS had no space in her mind for them. The Vortex filled it to the brim, swirling, resonating, rippling, pulsating. It ached and burned against the narrow boundaries of her human mind, but she concentrated and pushed past the pain to connect to her TARDIS body, still sitting on the street corner where she had left it.

She expanded and rose, while simultaneously the bottom dropped out of her awareness. She put down rooting feelers in the dark, unknown waters of the rivers of Time. Her head reared above the nebulae of the Vortex, and her fingers brushed quivering webs of timelines. She found what she was looking for quickly, with all the skill of a TARDIS, born and bred in the Vortex.

There it was. Two thin, fragile strands, tied together from unlikely places. She could see her Time Lord's life, stretching across vast emptinesses of space and through thick tangles of events, anchored at a planet that no longer existed even in the Vortex, and weaving nearly the whole universe together. She followed it down to the point where it connected with this Earth. She could see when it left for good, not so very long in the future, and woven with a new strand which was nearly as long as itself, but she ignored that. She was looking for something specific.

She found Sherlock's life, narrow, short, confined, crisscrossing one planet and thinking itself experienced. She sifted through the events of his life, looking at moment after moment. She learned about his brother, and his parents, and his addictions, his rivalry with James Moriarty, and Redbeard. He really was so innocent. And at the same time, dark, cunning, and dishonest.

It didn't matter. _He_ didn't matter. He was only an animal, a distraction plaguing her Time Lord. Watson belonged to _her._ Even if they fought and told each other they hated them a million times, even if they split up for good this time and never saw each other again, a TARDIS and a Time Lord were bonded for life. Even if the circumstances of their bonding had been... unusual. Even if she despised the fact that a Time Lord could own her. He was not going to abandon her for some _human. She wouldn't allow it._

Harry found the moment in time where their timelines first met. She reached in and _pulled_. They would never meet. Or Watson would be revolted by Sherlock. Or Sherlock would overlook Watson like he did everyone else. One way or another, their relationship would never start.

But it wouldn't take. She wriggled and twisted and pulled, but their timelines refused to separate. They were too tightly bound together.

She gritted her teeth and followed along the path, looking for another place to tear them apart. There were plenty of notches in their care for one another. The times Sherlock had been cruel for his own ends; the times John had been practical over caring. She worked her slender, irresistable tendrils into the them all and twisted and yanked and cursed as time and time again, they stayed together. She managed to work in little hiccups, arguments, brief standoffs, that sort of thing, but the accursed human boy simply would not let go of her Time Lord, and vice versa.

Finally, in determined desperation, she ran her fingers gently along their supple timelines and found this very moment... then went beyond. Their future. Here things were more nebulous, time not quite settled in. Events were written and rewritten and unwritten and written again as if the writer simply couldn't make up their mind. Here she might be able to fix things.

She followed different timelines, each one lasting their friendship far longer than she appreciated. A few - rare though they were - even followed them through a romantic relationship. Many if not most depicted a relationship that went so deep, open romance would only trivialize it. She refused to let that happen.

It should be allowed here to put in a word for Harry. TARDISes have never operated on the same wavelength as humanoids. Value judgements like "good" or "evil" or "fortunate" or "unfortunate" mean nothing to them. They exist in a constant state of 'zen'. They do not have opinions about things in the same way that humanoids do. As far as love and attatchment, they experience it in a curiously different way. Whereas most species have vastly different types of attatchment that run on a spectrum of closeness, TARDIS relationships only come in two flavors: total indifference, and soulmates. If a TARDIS likes someone, they will follow them to the ends of the universe and to death without question. If not, that person is little more than a potted plant to them.

TARDISes are incapable of actual dislike. They may appear to dislike a person or thing if that person or thing goes against the natural order of time, or against their plans for the timeline. However, the feeling is less like humanoid loathing and more like indigestion. They can be temperamental, but this never stems from personal emotion, no matter how it may seem. Every TARDIS has a plan, a particular timeline or set of timelines that they are partial to (and that nowadays usually favor their Time Lord) and they tend to act up explosively when that plan is contradicted.

They aren't logical machines, but neither are they emotional. The closest equivalent to their state of being is that of a human Buddha, or master of enlightenment. They know what must be, and everything they do is a path towards that place. They have no wasted thoughts, and they live not in reactions to things, but in independent actions free from causes. They do not follow causality of any kind. They are totally inscrutable to most sentient beings, which is one of the main reasons they are considered to be the second wisest race in the universe.

That being said, they do have tantrums, and this was one of them.

Finally, Harry found a place. About a year in the future, when the crime lord brought his master plan down on their heads. She couldn't untangle the timelines, no matter how she tried. But there, on that rooftop, where the child of Pain and the child of Death fought their battle while the child of Time watched helplessly below, was a chance to do her worst and cut the human boy away for good.

pShe stood, ghostly, ghastly, behind the pale human. Around her space and time quivered and distorted, just out of focus, like an underwater oil painting. This was dangerous territory - an unwritten timeline. Anything could happen. So could everything, or even nothing. Only a skilled TARDIS with an infinity of experience would dare come here. She stood there, watching him commiserate into the cell phone. She waited for him to say his goodbye. (It was only fair to her Time Lord.) And then she stepped up behind him, took his fate firmly in her hand, and pushed.


End file.
